S'more Tales of the Great Outdoors
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Recently I learned that the month of June is Great Outdoors Week. That disparity doesn't seem to bother anyone, especially Rick Perry, who signed it into officialness here in Texas back on April 3rd, my birthday. But why quibble? A government sanctioned reason to get out and enjoy God's beautiful nature is as good a reason as any for a city slicker.
Thinking about Great Outdoors (time period of your choosing) got me thinking about some of the significant times I have spent outdoors. This may not seem very meaningful to you, but those who know me well know that I have a superhuman amount of inertia, and getting me off the couch and away from a good book is quite a feat. A few times in my life, I got enough momentum going to find myself not only in the Great Outdoors, but in the wild mountains of Wyoming. Both experiences engendered similar feelings to those I get when I put myself on a roller coaster, the attendants slam the bar down and things start to roll. It's an out-of-body experience where I'm wondering just what's going to happen to that woman in the car, because she certainly isn't anyone I'm familiar with.
The first time I got on the mountain roller coaster was during my last semester of college. I had mono, an overwhelming number of projects due, and utter terror about what I would do with my life once those projects were turned in. The only comforting thought I could muster was that I could probably get a job as a ticket taker in the parking lot at Dulles Airport, and at least I would have plenty of time to read. Brunette Ambition in its lowest manifestation.
Into this delirium popped the idea that soon I would have nothing left that I had to do. I would have checked off the last thing on my to do list: take SATs, get into college, graduate from college. I was at the end of the line, and I realized that not only would I have to get onto a new train, but also that the new train could take me anywhere. A thought about as comforting as a blank white piece of paper. I could do anything I wanted, be anyone I wanted to be, live anywhere I wanted to live.
Rather than following my first inclination and going back to bed, I got on the the wall-mounted rotary dial phone in the kitchen of the sorority house where I was dwelling, and called information. I was worldly enough at that point to know that if you needed a number beyond the realm of 411, you could call 555-1212. I found the telephone number for NOLS, the National Outdoor Leadership School. With the free will of John Malkovich, I called them, signed up and told them that I would come camping for an entire month in July. I had a vague understanding that that month would include technical climbing, camping on glaciers, and fasting, but I was already on the roller coaster, watching that reckless young woman take off.
If I had been able to Google NOLS at that point, truth be told, I might have backed out. But I figured it couldn't be that hard. I called my family in Texas. After their stunned silence, they started laughing, not a very reassuring response. Basically they told me I would never be able to go so long without a shower. That did it. Any lingering doubt I had about embarking on this trip was crushed like a bug by the challenge.
Long story short, I found NOLS to be the most life changing thing I had ever done. And the hardest, but not because of the showers. That part was a relief, an exotic antidote to sorority life. The trip culminated with an ascent of Gannett Peak--the highest mountain in Wyoming--which every few months or so I have to remind my husband that I have climbed and he hasn't, just so he doesn't think I am a sissy.
While I was on the trip, I learned about people like Paul Petzoldt, and Jim Bridger--legendary mountain men--and heard wild tales of fur trappers, outlaws, boot-tough settlers: all the people who laid a thin veneer of humanity on the overwhelming ruggedness of the area. And, completely in character, on hard days hiking, it was the stories that kept me going: channeling these guys made it doable. What if I had to get to camp before the Sioux, to save my family? I could probably keep on going. What if I was snowbound in a cabin alone? I could probably eat boot leather--it wouldn't taste much worse than this lentil paste staring up at me from my dirty tin cup. I can do this thing. Slowly, I began to meld with the devil-may-care girl in the roller coaster.
Then I moved to New York. I know for a fact that were it not for the hard things I did that summer in Wyoming, I would never have had the guts to interview in those castles of culture, with editors peering from behind every crenelation, armed to the teeth with deep and intimate knowledge of great literature . But I stormed the buildings with all the strength I had brought down from the mountain and my bag of beloved stories, and luckily, I found a back door that was unlocked. The whole time I answered questions about books, I thought about the mountains.
Fast forward. Back in Texas, teaching school, two little girls and a husband later. One summer, that husband, who has been running lacrosse camps and trips since I met him, announces that we--all of us--are going to take a group of boys on a wilderness trip to Togwotee,a remote snowmobile lodge in Wyoming. You're going to love it, he says. You climbed Gannett Peak, remember?
Oh, yes, I did. About four lifetimes ago. The deep anxiety set in, with visions of bears eating my precious offspring and boys under my watch getting lost on glaciers or pitching into Lunch Counter and floating raft-free into the wilds of Idaho. But, I called on my old friend Jim Bridger, and we got ourselves up there.
I'm not sure what I was so worried about. The dangers of the wilderness for this mountaineer gal peaked in an endless assembly line of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, a fruitless attempt to keep a dozen mountain-biking, hiking, horseback riding, rafting, and growing middle school boys fed. Luckily my little girls were just about tall enough to push a grocery cart--it took us three each time we drove the 45 minutes into Jackson to go the the Food LIon.
One of my favorite things to do when I go to a new place is to find the "real" books about the area or someone from the area. At the Jenny Lake Ranger station in the Tetons, I found a wonderful book called Campfire Tales. It had a rustic looking cover, and it was a collection of stories about the adventures and antics of a variety of frontiersmen. Every night, as part of the education component of the trip, while we made s'mores, I would tell one of the stories from the book and try to bring the magic alive for the boys the way my NOLS instructors had done for me. With Orion watching overhead, light years closer than he ever is to Houston, and sparks popping from the fire, we debated the perfect toast on a marshmallow and got inspired by the colorful bravery of the characters in this little collection. Once again, the power of a tale well told transformed an outdoor experience from something overwhelming into something inspirational. For me at least.
And the most interesting twist? When I came on board at Bright Sky as Editorial Director-- as big a challenge as Gannett Peak or New York ever proved--and started familiarizing myself with the back list, what do I find published by my new house? Campfire Tales. I'm back on the sofa with the wilderness safely between soft covers.
O Henry himself couldn't have plotted a better ending to my tale of the great outdoors.
Whose idea was this anyway?
~City Slickers
